Very merry

The holidays are always sort of strange to me. I'm Jewish, so we never celebrated Xmas, though Hanukkah was a very big deal growing up, complete with eight (count 'em! 8!) gifts. The first Christmas I really adored was my first year in Manhattan. My friend Beth, who lived across the hall, came to my tiny apartment and we made a sea bass with black bean sauce (I wasn't a full-out vegetarian then), which we promptly burned, then we went out all day to movies, crashed a party, and came back home and watched movies all night long. I loved it. My worst was also in New York City, when someone I had loved had died, and I was alone, and the city had emptied out of all my friends. Again, I turned to the movies, going until two in the morning, me and the other disenfranchised in the city! I would have kept going but I chose the wrong movie, a really tragic one, and I ended up crying in the theater, walking home at two, crying, and crying the rest of the night in my apartment.

These days, holidays are with my funny husband and funny son and if you think I don't count my blessings about how lucky I am every second, you'd be wrong. We've been seeing movies, hanging out, going to a movie in about two hours, and hanging out some more. And tomorrow, we go to Boston to see my mother and Jeff's cousin and his family.

I haven't written as much as I have wanted to, but I'm thinking, thinking, thinking, and I'm gearing up for 2010. I have a novel coming out in August, I just finished a script, I'm writing another novel. There's this feeling that anything could happen.

Sort of like when you think you see reindeer in the sky.

Magic, anyone? Maybe the trick is to make your own magic, and then spread it around.

Happy end of 2009 everyone.